Tag: s

She-Wolves – England’s Early Queens

Video

  By

In the medieval and Tudor world there was no question in people’s minds about the order of God’s creation – men ruled and women didn’t. Yet despite everything that stood in their way, a handful of women did attempt to rule medieval and Tudor England. Historian Dr Helen Castor explores seven queens who challenged male power, the fierce reactions they provoked and whether the term ‘she wolves’ was deserved. Helen looks at what happened when England was faced not just with inadequate kings, but no kings at all.

Matilda and Eleanor

800 years ago Matilda almost became the first woman to be crowned queen of England in her own right. Castor explores how Matilda reached this point and why her bid for the throne ultimately failed. Her daughter-in-law Eleanor of Aquitaine was an equally formidable woman. Despite being remembered as the queen of courtly love, in reality during her long life she divorced one king and married another, only to lead a rebellion against him. She only finally achieved the power she craved in her seventies.

jane mary elizabeth

Isabella and Margaret

In 1308 a 12-year-old girl, Isabella of France, became queen of England when she married the English king. A century later another young French girl, Margaret of Anjou, followed in her footsteps. Both these women were thrust into a violent and dysfunctional England and both felt driven to take control of the kingdom themselves. Isabella would be accused of murder and Margaret of destructive ambition. But as historian Helen Castor reveals, their self-assertion that would have seemed natural in a man was deemed unnatural, even monstrous in a woman.

Jane, Mary and Elizabeth

In 1553, for the first time in English history all the contenders for the crown were female. In the lives of these three Tudor queens – Jane, Mary and Elizabeth – she explores how each woman struggled in turn with wearing a crown that was made for a male head. Elizabeth I seemed to show that not only could a woman rule, but could do so gloriously. But at what cost?

Shaolin Girl

  By

★★★
“Shaolin lacrosse, rather than soccer.”

Shaolin Girl photo 02Rin Sakurazawa (Shibasaki) has been training in shaolin kung-fu for over eight years. When she returns to Japan, she finds her dojo abandoned and derelict, and her former master Kenji Iwai (Eguchi) is now working as a cook in a local restaurant. She is recruited by a waitress there, Minmin (Yuqi). for the lacrosse team at the local Seikan University, but learns some harsh lessons on the nature of teamwork The university president, Yuichiro Oba (Nakamura), has another agenda, and seeks to draw Rin over to the dark side, by getting her to use her skills for more violent ends which he can then exploit. But it turns out that she was sent to China for good reason…

After the recently reviewed Beach Spike took volleyball to extremes, albeit to dubious effect, the inspiration here is equally obvious. That’s clearest during the end credits, when a lacrosse shot does exactly the same “turning into a fiery dragon” thing as in Shaolin Soccer. Still, despite having Stephen Chow as executive producer, and the presence in minor roles of a couple of actors from Chow’s Western breakout, in Chi Chung Lam and Kai Man Tin, this does go its own way for much of the film. Fortunately, it doesn’t try to reproduce the “plucky bunch of underdogs” story, which Soccer was affectionately parodying. This is far more about Rin’s personal journey of enlightenment, as she realizes there’s more to that than simply the physical aspects. Indeed, if you’re looking for action, the first two-thirds of this will be pretty disappointing, and even the lacrosse games aren’t very interesting.

Things certainly perk up in the final act, Rin eventually being provoked – mostly through attacks by Oba’s minions on everyone she cares for – into an assault on the villain’s lair. This appears to bear some relation to Bruce Lee’s unfinished Game of Death, as she works her way up through a pagoda, to the top level where she faces Oba, and… Well, things veer off into Matrix territory, with Rin apparently being The One, or something. If heavy on the CGI, it’s certainly spectacular, with the water effects being particularly lovely. All told, I didn’t mind this: it struck a nice balance between the elements, and it’s a winning performance from Shibasaki. However, it certainly suffers in comparison with its predecessor, and it appears clear Chow’s work on this, involved little more than cashing the cheques.

Dir: Katsuyuki Motohiro
Star: Ko Shibasaki, Tôru Nakamura, Kitty Zhang Yuqi, Yosuke Eguchi

S+H+E: Security Hazards Expert

  By

★★★
“The Spy Who Loved S+H+E.”

s+h+eThis brisk TV pilot was apparently screened on CBS in early 1980, as a showcase for a possible series depicting the adventures of Lavinia Kean (Sharpe), the female secret agent of the title, as she jets around the globe fighting bad guys while immaculately dressed. Think of it as an early ancestor of Covert Affairs, perhaps, though there are aspects, such as the gadgetry, which have more in common with Roger Moore-era 007. That’s probably not surprising, since the writer here, Richard Maibaum, did a lot of Bond films, from Dr. No until License to Kill. The villain’s scheme is certainly a bunch of Cubby Broccoli: a plan to introduce a biological slime which eats oil into the world’s supplies, and hold UNESCO to an annual ransom, in perpetuity. In this case, it’s actually two villains, Baron Cesare Magnasco (Sharif) and Owen Hooper (Lansing) who faced off in a gold medal boxing match at the Tokyo Olympics, before deciding global terrorism is a better path to fame and fortune than punching each other in the face.

The series never materialized, and its status as a pilot explains why elements – such as Lavinia’s Italian boyfriend – just dangle without resolution. It also features questionable science, with the heroine somehow pulling out of thin air, that freezing the slime with CO2 is the way to deactivate it. Mind you, with Anita Ekberg playing the bad guys’ top boffin, you know you’re looking at style over substance all round. Still, Sharpe has the air of a young Goldie Hawn and there are moments where things work, and you get the frothy entertainment at which this aims. For example, after Lavinia sprays a heavy with “knockout gas”, she is unable to drag the body away to hide it. Fortunately, there’s a trolley nearby, so she uses that… Until she gets to a doorway it won’t fit through…. When she just gives up, and throws a blanket over everything. Also a bit different from Bond is the dynamic between hero(ine) and villain, with Lavinia and Cesare having a sexual attraction that you never saw between Bond and Blofeld. It’s probably for the best, that.

Sharpe doesn’t have a great physical presence, so the fisticuffs require a fair bit as far as suspension of disbelief goes, and Michael Kamen’s soundtrack clings firmly to a touching belief that disco isn’t dead. However, the production values are good, with a lot of shooting on location in Italy.  Combine that with a decent cast, and the eighties could have done an awful lot worse than this becoming a full series.

Dir: Robert Michael Lewis
Star: Cornelia Sharpe, Omar Sharif, Robert Lansing, Anita Ekberg

Super Gun Lady

  By

★★
“Heroin with guns. No, that’s not a typo.”

Super_Gun_Lady_Police_Branch_82Based on a popular manga series by Tõru Shinohara, who gave us Sasori, I’m guessing this was also the inspiration for Police Branch 82, not least because the heroines in both work for a department by that number. I mean, what are the odds? Here, it’s described as “A secret department that investigates civil service crime,” and one of its detectives is 24-year-old Maki (Yokoyama), who has a reputation for not caring about the carnage she causes in getting her man. In an apparent effort to rope her in, she is assigned a new partner, Rin Kakura (Kaoru), who is rather less feminine, shall we say. This happens after Tajma, the executive Maki is supposed to be watching, ends up falling from a balcony in what looks like a suicide, but clearly isn’t. That turns out just to be the start, as the executive’s gay lover is trying to blackmail Takebe, an army buddy of Tajima who is now the chairman of their company. Adding even more complexity to a plot that was already groaning under the weight of all these threads, when the lover is stabbed on a city street, his killers are trailed by our heroines, back to a right-wing paramilitary organization. That’s when the trouble really starts, as Maki is kidnapped and pumped full of heroin…

It’s an extremely unsatisfactory script, which seems to rely too much on coincidence and doesn’t bother to explain itself at any point. For instance, Rin just happens to be hanging around outside a car-park when the kidnappers leave, intending to dump Maki’s body; similarly, one of the gang, just happens to find the car in which they are holding a suspect. And the second half of this diverts itself off into mostly being about a staged “false flag” operation, a bank robbery intended to distract the media from the blossoming political scandal. The villains liberate a trio of convicted killers from prison, with the hope of luring Department 82 into action – even though, as Rin herself says, it’s way outside their normal scope of investigation. The purpose and point of this is never adequately covered, and it seems as if the writers maybe had 30 pages of an unfinished script for another movie, and figured they might as well use it here.

For positives, I have to say, I liked Rin as a heroine, because she is not the willowy archetype often seen in this kind of film, whose top falls off at the slightest provocation. Instead, Kaoru genuinely looks like she could kick your arse, and would enjoy doing it; I haven’t been able to find any supporting evidence, but it would not surprise me if she was a pro wrestler – that’s the kind of look she possesses. The final shoot-out, as Rin and (the suddenly much better – I guess nothing kicks a heroin habit quicker than a good ol’ hostage situation) Maki storm the bank, is also fairly well-staged. However, I’ll be honest: it took me two attempts to get that far, the first having ended in an afternoon snooze on the couch instead. Never a good sign.

Dir: Chusei Sone
Star: Emi Yokoyama, Jumbo Kaoru, Kishida Mori, Yamatani Hatsuo

She Mob

  By

★★½
“Lethal weapons.”

She-MobReally, from the poster, I was expecting something utterly unwatchable, so on that basis, this rating should be considered something of a triumph. Oh, make no mistake, there are aspects of this that are truly dreadful. But it’s rare to find a film which so obviously does not give a damn about what the audience might want, and goes so relentlessly on its own way. After a rough week for your humble reviewer – I’ll get to Super Gun Lady and, worse still, Guns & Lipstick, over the next few days – I’m inclined to look upon this with more favour. It does at least alternate elements of some interest with its mediocrity; for instance, there can’t be many thrillers of the era, even soft-core ones like this, which have only a single male speaking role.

The focus is a group of four women, apparently recently escaped from prison, under the leadership of Big Shim (Castle), whose picture can be found in the dictionary beside “diesel dyke.” When two of the group become hungry for male company, Shim dials out to gigolo Tony (Clyde), but when he arrives and tells them he is now the toy-boy of rich businesswoman Brenda McClain (Castle), Shim decides to “kidnap” him for ransom. Because of their ‘delicate’ relationship, McClain won’t go the police, so turns instead to private detective Sweetie East (Duval). She plays the part of her employer when it’s time to drop off the ransom, but hides a transmitter in along with the cash, and follows its signal back to the gang’s lair. This being 1968, the whole transmitter concept has to be explained in detail, I guess in case any of the audience hasn’t seen Goldfinger.

There’s a fair bit here of note, albeit not always in a good way. Firstly, having the same actress play both Shim and McClain is a striking choice, especially since this was apparently Castle’s one and only movie [though I suspect assumed names were heavily used here; there isn’t even a formal director’s credit!]. Admittedly, neither of her performances are exactly subtle, though that’s in line with the incredibly-pointed bra she wears, which would be rejected by mid-90’s Madonna as excessive, and with which she stabs Tony at one stage in proceedings. Then there’s “Sweetie,” an obvious knock-off of Honey West, though the budget here doesn’t stretch to an ocelot. And the rest of Shim’s gang are little less memorable, from Twig, the simple-minded go-go dancer, to Baby, Shim’s lover, whose main purpose is to remind us how far breast implants have come over the past 45 years.

The main downside here are the lengthy, frequent interludes where nothing much is happening. Mostly, these are what could best be called “scenes of a sexual nature,” though they are so completely unerotic they begin to feel like Dadaist sketch comedy. For instance, the film opens with Brenda taking a bath, yelling shrilly and repeatedly for Tony to join her. When he eventually does, they slosh around in the tub for a few minutes while the single camera watches with a complete lack of passion. Still, it’s a film that you will certainly remember, and is a pleasure to write about, offering no shortage of aspects worthy of comment. Though that may partly be my subconscious trying to put off having to write a review of Super Gun Lady.

Dir: Harry Wuest
Star: Marni Castle, Adam Clyde, Monique Duval, Twig

Savaged

  By

★★★
“The Crow-ette”

savagedZoe (Adrienne) is driving across country to meet her long-distance boyfriend, Dane (Samuel), when she has the misfortune to stumble into a pack of four rednecks, engaged in their favourite pastime of hunting the local Indians. When they stab one to death right in front of her, it’s clear things are going to end badly for her: and they do, as she is raped, brutalized and left near-dead in a shallow grave. But a conveniently-passing shaman finds her; though his efforts to save her are unsuccessful, the spirit of a dead chief enters Zoe. For, it turns out, he was killed by the ancestors of these same rednecks, and he sees in Zoe the chance to extract his long-awaited and brutal revenge. However, there’s a time-limit involved: since she’s still technically dead, decomposition is setting in…

There are a couple of interesting wrinkles here, first that Zoe is deaf. This disability doesn’t play much part in proceedings, which is actually kinda cool: it’s just another aspect of her character. What is rather more relevant, is that Dane is black, so when he heads out in search of her, and crossed the path of the rednecks, it soon becomes very apparent that it isn’t just native Americans they dislike. All of which simply adds impetus to your enthusiasm for them to get their comeuppance, and that certainly happens. The “revenge” part of this rape-revenge flick starts with the possessed Zoe in a bar, yanking someone’s intestines out like they were tickets from an arcade game, and impressively, somehow manages to escalate from there. She gets to wield a variety of traditional weapons, such as a bow & arrow or spear, on the way to the slightly-less traditional tomahawk vs. chainsaw finale.

This only comes close to working if you don’t think about it too much: ideally, at all. Otherwise, you’ll be left wondering about questions like why the shaman didn’t do the sensible thing and call 911; too often, the supernatural aspects are used as an alternative for plot logic. Have to say, though, Adrienne is very good as Zoe, though in some ways, it’s a shame she has to be possessed by a male ghost to get her revenge. I’d have been perfectly happy for her to be intestine-yanking on her own terms, and Dane could also be excised from the plot entirely. Still, the further this heads into excess e.g. point-blank target practice, the more entertaining it is, and the practical effects are more than good enough to counter some distinctly ropey CGI work. As the title of this piece suggests, more than one review has compared this to The Crow – and that’s a reasonable parallel, considering its similar mix of soft-core spirituality and hard-core violence.

Dir: Michael S. Ojeda
Star: Amanda Adrienne, Tom Ardavany, Ronnie Gene Blevins, Marc Anthony Samuel

Sexy Battle Girls

  By

★½
“Neither sexy nor battle-y. They are, however, girls. So, one out of three then.”

sexybattlegirlsIt takes real effort for a film that’s barely an hour long, significantly to overstay its welcome, but SBG manages to do exactly that, thanks to its woeful combination of shoddy action and tedious sex scenes. The heroine is teenager Mirai Asamiya (Hashimoto, about as much an actual teenager as I am), who has been transferred to a new school at the behest of her father. Little does she know, at least initially, that she is simply a tool for his revenge, headmaster Bush (Hotaru) having seduced Mirai’s mother away from her husband, and run off with her. To this end, Mirai has been brought up with what we should call, a very particular set of skills: we’ll spare you the details of exactly what the “Venus Crush” involves, but it does lead to the classic line, “He doesn’t know how dangerous your vagina is!” Before she can reach her target, she has to get close by dethroning and replacing his current enforcer of discipline, Susan (Taguchi), and also get past Bush’s lesbian daughter (Kiyokawa).

It’s clearly intended as a spoof of the Sukeban Deka genre, with the heroine wielding another Japanese toy, a kendama, rather than a yo-yo – in this case, her weapon also has a little phallus, and no prizes for guessing where it’s aimed. The resulting moaning and thrashing around, only slows the pace of this down even further. There are also subplots involving schoolgirls being prostituted off to Japanese politicians, and a truancy officer who looks the other way in exchange for sex. Maybe the former was of particular cultural significance in its native land at the time this was released in 1986; here, it’s just a dangling cinematic preposition, hard to put up with. The film does occasionally show some berserk invention: let’s just say, you don’t need to worry about slicing apples when Mirai around. However, I’d estimate a good half of its running time is tedious soft-core sex scenes of one form or another, and the action, when it appears, makes the original Sukeban Deka fights look like Bruce Lee at the peak of his career.

I guess it’s kind of churlish to complain about a pinku movie containing sex. But there are ways and means by which it can be used, and combined with the other plot elements in a manner that enhances them. The makers of this are apparently unaware of all such techniques, and prefer an approach which feels like a crap action movie crashed headlong into a crap soft-porn film, with the floor sweepings used to assemble the finished product. Never mind “uncut” and “unrated,” the finished product here is damn near unwatchable.

Dir: Mototsugu Watanabe
Star: Kyôko Hashimoto, Yukijirô Hotaru, Ayumi Taguchi, Ayu Kiyokawa
a.k.a. Target Campus: Attack the Uniform

Switchblade Sisters

  By

★★★★
“S’funny, no-one ever calls them Switchblade Sisters.”

switchbladeThe briskly-moving piece of seventies trash is much beloved by Quentin Tarantino, and I have to agree with him about its merits. While some elements haven’t stood the test of time well, in other ways, it’s well ahead of its era, and there is, literally, never a dull moment here. Initially, the teenage girl gang are the Dagger Debs, a somewhat subservient bunch to their male counterparts, the Silver Daggers, and their leader, Dominic (Brauner). He’s paired up with the Debs’ #1, Lace (Lee), but has eyes for new girl Maggie (Nail), who is soon impressing Lace with her street smarts and toughness.

That doesn’t sit well with Lace’s lieutenant, Patch (Gayle), so named because she lost an eye in an earlier incident. However, Maggie might just provide the opportunity for which Patch has been waiting. The Daggers have their own issues, having to deal with a new gang muscling in on their turf. An attempted ambush at the roller-rink goes badly wrong, with their intended targets aware of the plans, and the resulting carnage leaves a power vacuum, into which Maggie steps. She expels the men, changes the gang’s name to the Jezebels, and teams up with a revolutionary group, who can provide the weaponry she needs for revenge. Patch, however, tries to convince the gang that it was Maggie who betrayed them, having shot the leader of the enemy gang, the only other person who knows the real identity of the traitor.

Phew. Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff going on here, and in comparison to the basic plotting of many of its exploitation brethren, that’s one of the joys here. It’s also full of memorable characters, with even the minor members of the girl gang given little quirks and foibles, which help turn them from caricatures into people. In many ways, it feels like an American take on the pinky violence movies that Japan was also making in the mid-seventies, but Hill – who deserves a place in action heroine history, for his part in turning Pam Grier into a star – really amps up the female empowerment here. That’s especially true in the second half, after the Debs declare their emancipation: it’s a communal arc of independence, as they discover what they can do, culminating in a running gun-battle through the streets against their enemy. Can’t put it any better than Maggie does at the end, as she’s being led away, drenched in someone else’s blood, by the police [not much of a spoiler: crime never pays in this kind of film, fun though it might certainly be!].

“Let me give you some advice, cop. You can beat us, chain us, lock us up. But we’re gonna be back, understand? And when we do, cop, you better keep your ass off our turf, or we’ll blow it off! Ya dig? We’re Jezebels, cop – remember that name. We’ll be back!”

If that gets your juices flowing, and leaves you keen to slash the seats at the local drive-in [probably not a good idea, since it’s your own car you’ll be carving up], then this slice of prime cheese will be ripe for your platter.

Dir: Jack Hill
Star: Joanne Nail, Robbie Lee, Monica Gayle, Asher Brauner

Shadow Dancer

  By

★★★½
“The informant who went into the cold.”

shadowdancerIt’s 1993, and the peace process in Northern Ireland is cautiously inching forward – though there are some who prefer a more robust method of rebellion, shall we say. Among them is Collette McVeigh (Riseborough) whose little brother was killed by the British Army when she was 12. Along with her brothers Gerry (Gillen, whom you’ll know as Littlefinger from Game of Thrones) and Connor, she is part of the armed struggle, until a mission to plant a bomb in London leads to her capture. MI5 officer Mac (Owen) gives her a stark choice: face a long stretch in prison, separated from her children, or become an informer on her own family.  Collette chooses the later, perhaps influenced by Mac showing her it was an IRA sniper who killed her brother. But it soon becomes clear more is at play, with Mac’s boss (Anderson) apparently intent on sacrificing Collette, in order to protect another, more valuable asset.

Man, this is chilly. Just about everyone in this is being manipulated by one or more of the other characters. It is particularly successful at bringing home just how much the life of an informant must become a gurgling vortex of paranoid loneliness: you can’t trust anyone, and your life could end at virtually any moment. There’s one scene which really brings that home, where Collette is taken to an abandoned apartment, and quizzed about recent security breaches by her cell’s “compliance officer” (for want of a better job description!). She’s entirely on her own, and not even her brothers would be able to help if the truth is revealed. But she’s certainly not the only one: Mac is equally being used by his boss as a tool, and with a coldness that’s particularly chilling, since they’re supposed to be on the same side. Enhancing this, is that the viewer can see the point: it’s like a game of chess where a knight is sacrificed to protect the queen. Doesn’t make it any less painful for the knight of course, but the greater good is not necessarily painless. As a result, there are no real villains here: there are, however, a number of people who have to do unpleasant things for others, either through coercion or because they believe them to be justified. Such is the murky world of terrorism and counter-terrorism.

Director Marsh is best known for his docudrama Man on Wire, about a tight-rope walker who strung a line between the two towers of the World Trade Center in 1974 and crossed between them, 1,350 feet up. This provides a similar same sense of living on a knife-edge, and resulting ever-present peril – along with the threat of violence, which even infects something as solemn as a funeral. The double-twist ending is shocking, though I confess the second one seemed to appear out of nowhere, and appeared to offer little more than this shock value. Still, as a tense drama, this is solid enough, anchored by decent performances from all involved.

Dir: James Marsh
Star: Andrea Riseborough, Clive Owen, Gillian Anderson, Aidan Gillen

Shinobi Girl

  By

★½
“Setting a low standard for Netflix distribution.”

shinobigirlOkay, I’m sure there are worse films on Netflix. Somewhere. But I haven’t yet found them/ Combining cheapjack production values with poor performances and woefully bad attempts at social commentary, the occasional decent fight sequence aren’t able to overcome the very significant negatives. The heroine is Noriko (Hellquist), who is raped by the Wall Street bigwig, Ronald Brooks, for whom she works – and then framed for his murder. She creates a secret identity, Shinobi Girl: as well as seeking to expose the real killer, she acts as the protector of the 99%, hunting down and dispatching the decadent uber-rich. They are led by Brooks’ widow (Fahey),  and commit heinous crimes with no fear of legal reprisal, up to and including orgies of murder and cannibalism (!).

The origins as a web series are obvious, with each of the nine episodes (the finale is in two parts), running 15-20 minutes. Take off “previously on Shinobi Girl“, the intro, opening credits, “next time on Shinobi Girl” and closing credits, and you could probably romp through the entire thing on about two hours. If you have some washing-up or ironing that needs doing, that might work, as you can then ignore the scenes where anyone is talking, because most of the performances here would be challenged by a wet paper-bag. It’s also difficult to accept this was made as recently as 2012, because the video quality is not much better than you’d get off an iPhone.

Somewhat redeeming things is the swordplay, although curiously, samurai weapons seem more common in New York than guns. I also kinda liked the multiple female leads: as well as Noriko and Mrs. Brooks, whose scenery-chewing is, at least, somewhat appropriate, there’s also Brooks’ lead henchwoman, Raven (Van De Water). But good intentions alone aren’t enough to sustain any movie. Our daughter used to make little films with her friend and a home-video camera when she was in her early teens: even discounting parental rose-tinting, I suspect those weren’t significantly worse than this. Maybe I need to dig them out and submit ’em to Netflix as a “web series”.

Dir: John Sirabella
Star: Alexandra Hellquist, Molly Fahey, Mia Van De Water, Aaron Mathias